Structure
Today, Liga Alef is split into two regional divisions on a north-south basis. Because Israel's northern half is much more densely populated than the desert south, the dividing line between the northern and southern divisions is somewhere between Haifa and Tel Aviv, meaning that the southern "half" covers about three-quarters of the country. Although this inequality is partially offset by the fact that there are so few clubs south of Beersheba (Dimona, Yeroham, Mitzpe Ramon and Eilat are the only sizable towns south of the city, and currently only Hapoel Arad are in Liga Alef), the northern clubs tend to be clustered in the Galilee region, making travel to away matches much less of a chore.
Each division has sixteen clubs, who play each other home and away to make a 30-game season. The club finishing top of each regional division is promoted to Liga Leumit, whilst the two second-placed teams have a play-off, with the winner playing-off against the third-bottom team in Liga Leumit for a place in that division. The bottom two from each division are relegated to Liga Bet, the fourth tier. Coming into Liga Alef are the two or three clubs relegated from Liga Leumit and the four clubs promoted from Liga Bet (the winner of each of the four regional divisions). The clubs are then pooled and assigned to the most geographically appropriate of the two divisions.
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